Days to its listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Airtel Africa has disclosed its initial listing share price for Nigerian investors. The network operators’ share price will triple that of MTN Nigeria which listed in May 2019.
Airtel Africa’s share price has been pegged at between N363 and N454 per share. This put the company’s stock price far above MTN Nigeria which debuted with N90 on its first trading day. The South African company now trades at N130 on NSE. The price-earnings ratio of Airtel will perhaps indicate if the listing price is expensive or not. MTN listed at a price-earnings ratio of about 12x.
Note that the actual offer price is determined after the bid closure based on the demand generated in the process.
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These are the qualified investors: There’s a condition for investors to access Airtel Africa’s shares on the NSE. According to the company, shares will only be offered to high net worth investors and institutional investors through book building.
Book building is a process used by companies to raise capital through public offerings, both initial public offers (IPOs) or follow-on public offers (FPOs), to aid price and demand discovery.
What this means: Only investors with $3 million or more in investable assets, not including the value of their primary residence, will be qualified to purchase Airtel Africa’s shares.
[READ ALSO: MTN’s listing: Should you buy, sell or wait and see?]
Listing on both the NSE and the London Stock Exchange will see Airtel float new shares of between 595.2 million to 744 million, raising a total £595 million, which is inclusive of an over-allotment option.
Airtel’s Market Cap: The telecoms group is pushing ahead for a target valuation of up to £3.6 billion, which implies an increase from £3.007 billion to £3.623 billion; excluding any option of over-allotment.
Why Airtel Africa is listing: The listing will enable the company to use the net proceeds of the offer to reduce debt as well as do the following:
- The listing on the exchange would provide access to the capital markets and diversification of the Group’s capital base to support its continued growth.
- The directors also believe that offering the shares in Nigeria and listing on the NSE would encourage operational discipline through the establishment of an independent capital structure and governance framework following the successful turnaround of the Group’s operations.
- It would introduce an optimal capital structure and enable improved leverage for greater flexibility in pursuing growth opportunities going forward.
[READ ALSO: Airtel, Telkom consolidate to battle largest telecoms company]
Brokers of the shares: The issuing houses for the offer are Barclays Securities Nigeria and Quantum Zenith Securities Investments Limited.
Airtel Africa hinted July 4th as the commencement date for conditional dealings in its shares. It said the application had been made to the NSE for the Ordinary Shares to be admitted to the official list of the NSE.
At least 25% of the stock is expected to float freely immediately following the IPO.
Airtel Nigeria currently has 31 million subscribers, making them the second largest telecommunication company in Nigeria behind MTN Nigeria with 50 million users.